Being Oscar Read Free

the guys I was representing were evil, and even if there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the charges, it didn’t matter because they were guilty of something. The agents felt that the ends justified the means.
    That’s not what the Constitution says, nor is it what the Bill of Rights is about.
    My clients were some of the most notorious mobsters in the country, but the guys in the white hats were the ones who I saw breaking the law. In almost every case I tried—and I tried hundreds—Federal prosecutors and FBI agents thought nothing of withholding evidence, distorting the facts, or making deals with despicable individuals who would get up on the witness stand and say whatever they were told.
    I was the guy who tried to make the government play by the rules. Sometimes I succeeded. And when I did—and I really mean this—I felt as though I had done something good for the country. I was helping to guarantee the fundamental rights that we’re all entitled to. The grocer, the librarian, the trash collector, and the accountant are all the same under the law. And so is an alleged member or leader of an organized crime family. Just because his name ends in a vowel doesn’t mean some snot-nosed prosecutor with a law degree from Harvard can come along and take away his rights as a citizen.

    Maybe that feeling that we’re all equal has more to do with where I came from than where I was when I started practicing law. I grew up in a tough neighborhood in West Philadelphia, a Jewish kid among a lot of Irish Catholics. We’d fight a lot. Sometimes I’d win, most of the time I’d lose, but I wouldn’t back down. Eventually I ended up playing football with a lot of the Catholic guys, and we became friends.
    That’s one of those life lessons you learn over time—lessons that you’re not even aware you’re learning. Mine was this: never back down. It’s the way I lived my life as a lawyer, and later as the mayor of Las Vegas.
    I had other things going for me, of course. My father, A. Allan Goodman, was a lawyer who worked in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and my mother was into the arts. I was the oldest of three children, and I received tremendous support from my family. My parents always made me feel I was the handsomest, the smartest, and the best at whatever I did. You can’t underestimate the power of liking who you are if you’re going to make it in the world.
    My dad was a nice, decent man who was treated with respect and admiration wherever he went. He came to watch me play ball, and he took me to Phillies and Eagles games. I remember classic pitching duels between Robin Roberts, the Phillies great right-hander, and Don Newcombe of the Brooklyn Dodgers, both excellent hitters as well. I also remember Eagles’ games at Franklin Field and the great middle-linebacker Chuck Bednarik. They called him “Concrete Charlie” because he was so tough.
    We lived on Christian Street in West Philadelphia, where my dad set up a blackboard in the basement. Every night my sisters and I had to do our homework in chalk on the blackboard first. Once it was perfect, we could copy it onto paper that we would turn in at school the next day. My dad was a stern taskmaster who knew how important education was, and that’s how he instilled its importance in us.
    I loved both my parents very much, and I’m who I am because of them. My mother, Laura, was a card who took over any room she entered; I inherited my dramatic gene from her. Her father, Oscar Baylin, for whom I was named, came from Russia and settled in Chester, Pennsylvania. He started out with a pickle barrel and ended up the wealthy owner of a giant food market. He lost it all in the Great Depression, but his philosophy was that it was better to have had it and lost it than to have never had it at all.
    My mother was the oldest of five daughters. She was a remarkable artist and sculptress who studied with the greats—Hans Hoffman, Milton Avery, Wharton